Our Teaching & Learning

Artificial Intelligence at Friends'

Technology is integrated into student learning throughout the Primary, Middle and Senior School experience. Students develop technological skills to support them into the future, especially as they move into an AI (artificial intelligence) enabled world. It would be easy to suggest it has never been more important than it is now to prepare students’ technological skills, however, technology has, and will continue to, throw up challenges as new developments emerge.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported that almost 40% of jobs worldwide will be impacted by AI. In advanced economies, this increases to 60% with about half of these being negatively impacted. Although, many predictions over the last 100 years or so suggesting massive job loss in the future have generally proven to be false. Make no mistake, it will change. Roughly 75% of the world worked on farms 120 years ago, the number now is less than 20% (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/artificial-intelligence-ai-jobs-future).

Recently, The Friends’ School staff had the opportunity to share and experience different challenges and opportunities of AI during the staff day at the start of Term 3. Staff could elect from a number of workshops allowing each to experience something interesting and valuable and appropriate to each person’s level of AI knowledge. 

We will continue to look for ways to support our staff on this journey.

There is so much being written about AI; it is portrayed as ‘bad’ when considering the challenges to academic integrity and shortcuts to learning or something exciting, to be harnessed and used to great advantage. It seems to have entered the educational sphere with great momentum and thus we have to be responsive and flexible to ensure it is used to benefit student learning. Without doubt, we have to consider carefully our approach to assessment and academic integrity as we modify tasks and offer guidance to students as to acceptable use of AI. The use of AI when completing an assessment task can vary from no AI use when doing a handwritten task in-class assessment, to flexible, acknowledged use of AI in assignment work. At all times, students are asked to think critically. This is not dissimilar to the challenges many teachers felt Google posed to research strategies, however, time has proven that it simply led to an adjustment in methodology.

At Friends’, we are fortunate to be able to draw on our Purpose and Concerns. AI use must be done in a way that is ethical, inclusive and aligned with our school’s goals. Our Purpose and Concerns is central to what we value and how we wish to guide our students. It explicitly supports critical thinking, acting with integrity, allowing students to make decisions for themselves and to think clearly. It provides wonderful guidance.

In addition, there are guidelines in place, both nationally and internationally, and provisions for teaching AI within the Australian Curriculum. The Federal Government released the Australian Framework in December last year, with a view to updating the Framework every 12 months. The framework was developed against a backdrop of blanket bans in 2022 and early 2023 to a position where the framework is designed to help make education more compelling and effective. It outlines principles for privacy and security standards, equity and accessibility and it requires schools to engage students on how generative AI tools work – including potential limitations and biases.

Are we on the cusp of a very different future? New things are scary and it is human nature, at least for some of us, to focus on the potential downsides of new things. Where we go from here will need critical thinking and adjustment, a challenge that the School will accept.

Lyn Tunbridge - Director of Teaching and Learning (K to 12)